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Motivation, Still a Problem

There are still so many things in post grad life that you need to muster up some motivation for. It might not be an assignment, but it's just as hard.

If you are unemployed, you need motivation to search for jobs, then to apply for them. Cover letters are hard and take a lot of time and effort. There is also motivation needed to follow-up with applications, go to interviews, and through it all to keep applying for even more jobs in case you don't get any previously applied for.

If you are employed you need motivation to get up and go to work. There are mornings that I just look at my alarm clock stupefied because I can't grasp why it's making such loud noises when I want to sleep. You also need motivation while on the clock to complete the tasks assigned to you. It's inevitable that you receive that tedious task from your boss on Monday morning that is going to take hours to complete and all you want to do is put it at the bottom of your pile.

So how do you stay motivated post grad? It's not like there's a professor breathing down your neck to finish things. There might be a boss but they need to do their own job and not focus on yours. Some ideas...

Set yourself a deadline. You have 2 hours to complete this task and then you are free to focus on something else.

Have clear goals. Make sure you apply for 4 jobs in an hour. Then it can be break time.

If you aren't in the mind-set to start being productive, set a reverse deadline. Tell yourself you are going to begin productivity at 3pm, no matter what.

Create a reward for finishing your task. Promise yourself a smoothie on the way home from work if you finish that task you didn't want to do.